"You think the two are connected?"
"Yeah. Don't you think it's strange? The whole thing was just wrong. And that wasn't the only strange thing! After Old Liu's funeral, the project had to continue, so someone else took over. Over the next month or two, the original houses were all torn down, the ground was dug up, and they started cleaning out the sewers. That took a long time. Once they'd finished the ground, they started driving piles. I remember... that was six months later. While they were cleaning the sewers, someone threw up from the stench and someone else passed out. The water company and the gas company came to help, and even they could barely stand it. There weren't any cables back then, not all the underground cables we have now. We had utility poles with wires strung overhead. They cleared away those poles, and someone got electrocuted. For more than half a year, one thing after another kept happening. We'd never had anything like that on our company's projects before. Our company was the best in Minqing, with experienced workers and strict on-site supervision, but things just kept happening one after another. No one else was like Old Liu, but people got hurt, the wires got tangled up, and the project schedule was affected."
"Did the workers ever say why?"
"There was no reason. It was just creepy! Even now, when I think about it, it gives me the creeps. It was like people would lose focus just standing there. They were always forgetting things, and they were in really bad shape mentally."
"Did your project team investigate that possibility? The waste left in the sewers might have produced toxic gases... You said earlier that someone passed out from the fumes while the sewers were being cleaned."